by C. L. Werner
As his tongue flickered in the air, Lascilion felt old urges stir deep within him – half-remembered lusts, half-forgotten desires. The suffering he sensed was beyond any he had tasted before. He had drunk often from the well of torment, but never had he encountered something of such terrible purity. It was like a fine vintage, set down long ago and carefully tended so that it might reach a perfection of cruelty. The air of horror that drew him on had been cultivated not over the lifetime of a single murderous tyrant, but was steeped in the malignity of centuries. A pall of nigh-incomparable agony clung to Nulahmia, and it was calling out to him as though drawing back to itself one of its own.
That was why, where so many others had failed, Lascilion would succeed. The disciples of Nurgle, the warlords of Khorne, the acolytes of Tzeentch, even the verminous spawn of the Rat God had all tried to discover the secret city to which Queen Neferata had retreated. Man, daemon or monster – all had failed. Lascilion wouldn’t fail. His devotions to Slaanesh would see him through. Bloodking Thagmok, overlord of the armies of Chaos in Shyish, would learn that, broken or lost, the power of the Serpent lived on in his servants.
The monstrous steed upon which Lascilion rode lurched beneath him, its sinuous body undulating with ripples of agitation. It was a gift from the Realm of Chaos, a daemon sustained by his own depraved spirit. In the Mortal Realms, daemons demanded certain conditions to exist – mighty relics, lavish sacrifices, mantles of flesh to possess or, most propitious of all, a landscape in harmony with their own dark essence. In all his wanderings, Lascilion had never sensed a place more in tune with the power of Slaanesh than Nulahmia. The warlord opened his eyes and gave his daemon steed a reassuring pat on its fluted proboscis. Only when the thing had quieted somewhat did he turn his attention to the being that had upset his mount.
Amala crouched in the mouldy filth of the ground across which the army marched, gossamer wings folded against her back. She stretched forth a ropey tendril and offered to Lascilion a curled portion of skin. The warlord noted the blood that dripped from the scroll as he plucked it from the chitinous tentacle. The insect-like mutant was a capable scout, but her lack of a mouth made it necessary for her to render her reports in writing. She was often too impatient to wait for stylus and clay, so made do with the horde’s stragglers.
Lascilion dismissed the mutant with a flick of his hand. There was only so long his steed could abide the sight of the luminous organs that oozed up from beneath Amala’s skin. When the winged scout withdrew to the branches of a gnarled tree some distance away, it was as though his mind surged up from beneath black waters.
Tokresh-khan, chieftain of the Sorroweaters, marched towards Lascilion when he had seen Amala fly away. The barbarian was a huge man, nearly as tall on foot as the warlord was in his saddle. Tokresh wore only a few ornaments and talismans, preferring to display his scarred and tattooed body and prove his devotion to Slaanesh by exposing himself to the slashing blades and raking claws of his enemies. The masses of grey scars etched across his sallow skin had transcended ugliness to become beautiful in their own right, weaving and flowing into one another like the coils of the Serpent himself.
Lascilion, by contrast, took great care to protect the magnificent body and handsome visage with which Slaanesh had gifted him. Once, he had been as ugly as one of Tokresh’s lizard-skin boots, but his devotions had transformed him into an entirely different being. His body was strong and fine, wondrous as a marble god and powerful as a daemon. His skin was as smooth as eiderdown, and the great mane of hair that cascaded down from his head and tumbled across his shoulders was like spun gold. His face transcended the limitations of human beauty, blending the nobility of a lion with the wisdom and determination of a king.
To guard these gifts, Lascilion wore plate armour cast from great slivers of pearl plundered from the noxious depths of the Obsidian Lagoon. Each segment of his shimmering armour had been etched with esoteric sigils and the secret names of his god, soaked in wyrd-dust until every piece was saturated in powerful magics. At his side, he wore twin swords crafted by the crazed swordsmith Nakadai, the vicious blade named Pain and its smaller brother Torment. Each new victim fed the blades, swelling their power with the anguish of those they cut down.
Lascilion let one hand slip down to Pain’s ivory grip, feeling the hungry hum of the aroused blade pulse through him. He fixed a stern gaze upon Tokresh. It had been an arduous ordeal, bringing his army through the arcane veils that guarded these lands. Many times he had been challenged, confronted by despairing chieftains and sorcerers who wanted to turn back. Their path through the gravefog was littered with the bodies of those who had tried to oppose his command.
Tokresh halted when he saw Pain inching from its sheath. The barbarian looked from the blade to the face of the man who held it. ‘You have sent the moth-eater ahead of us?’ he asked, nodding towards Amala. There was a woeful lack of deference in the chieftain’s tone. Lascilion would remember that.
‘I have her words,’ Lascilion declared, waving the fleshy scroll in his other hand. He looked across the bleak landscape through which his army marched, a jumbled terrain of barren mountains and winding ravines, dead trees and yellowed weeds. ‘We will soon be quit of these lands.’
‘It cannot be soon enough,’ Tokresh cursed. He slapped a calloused hand against his tattooed breast. ‘This place chills my heart and would unman me. Every step I take, I can feel my courage falter. There is witchery here, the stink of the necromancers and their ilk.’ He waved at the marching Sorroweaters as the marauders were approaching one of the withered stands of trees that spotted the edges of the trail the army followed. ‘My warriors sense it too. I can see it in their eyes, watch it crawling across their faces. We have heard much of Neferata and her might. There are some who worry you lead us not to glory but disgrace.’
Lascilion gazed across the ranks of the Sorroweaters. They were a formidable force, hundreds strong, each man built along the same hulking lines as their chieftain. Standards crafted from the still-moaning bodies of their victims rose above the heads of the marching marauders. Their shamans knew spells of such horrific potency that they could remind even the undead what it was to suffer. For their living victims, even more unspeakable tortures were their reward. Normally, the Sorroweaters drew strength from the misery of their living totems. Now, Lascilion could see that their ardour was dimmed. They glanced at their surroundings with furtive, worried looks.
Among the rest of his horde, he could see similar traces of trepidation. The brays and bleats of the Vorkoth warherd had fallen to almost nothing, the horned beastmen moved to silence by the oppressive atmosphere. The fratricidal Hellcast had drawn close to one another, something the gold-armoured knights usually did only when they charged into battle, all too aware of the Khornate curse that hovered over their heads and spurred them to strike one another when no other foes presented themselves. Even the Scalpfinders, the most savage and brutal of the tribes who followed Lascilion, had a subdued air about them, clutching their axes and flails as though they were talismans rather than weapons.
Mendeziron, the gigantic Keeper of Secrets, was less circumspect in his agitation, plucking gors and marauders from the midst of their tribes as though they were choice morsels in a box of sweetmeats. The more the army surrendered to their fear, the more they excited the appetites of the daemon. The four-armed monster needed such victims to invigorate him. The obscene reliquary Lascilion had stolen from the Crying Tower was enough to sustain Mendeziron in the Mortal Realms, but not enough to lend the daemon any measure of strength. That required more substantial offerings. Early in the march, there had been many among his army who considered giving themselves to Mendeziron a sacred honour. Now they fought or fled when the daemon came for them.
Lascilion scowled at the unquestionable lack of valour and determination on display. It was small wonder the followers of the other Ruinous Powers had come to hold those who served Slaanesh in
such disregard. Was this the best that could be expected of them? Were they merely decadent hedonists, grown soft in their vices, no longer capable of the intensity of desire that drove them to ever more profound revelations of experience?
‘Can you truly be afraid?’ Lascilion sneered at Tokresh. ‘Can you not delight in the chill that curdles your blood? Is it not something new? Is it not something you haven’t felt before?’ He could see that his questions made no impact upon the barbarian. Creatures like Tokresh were too simple to understand the extent of experience the true disciple of Slaanesh must be willing to embrace as an offering to his god. ‘We have fought the coffin-worms before. The whole of Shyish was once their domain. But with sword and spell, we have brought them to ruin. The Lords of Chaos have conquered the Masters of Death. All that is left of them are lingering echoes, remnants hiding in the night. Can you not imagine the delights that await us? The wonders of pillage and conquest that stand before us?’
‘Their magic is strong,’ Tokresh protested.
‘The very magnitude of their spells should whet your desires,’ Lascilion told him. ‘The greater the effort to protect, the more magnificent the reward that waits for those with the determination to press on.’ He tapped the fleshy scroll against his breastplate. ‘Amala has seen the walls of a city just beyond the mountains. A day, less than a day, and we shall stand before those walls.’ A cruel smile twisted Lascilion’s leonine face. ‘We will tear down those walls. We will fall upon the city that stands beyond them. The last city of Shyish will be our playground. Your kinsmen will be free to loot and pillage, to defile and desecrate. You will abandon yourselves in murder and delight, and every indulgence will be an offering to Great Slaanesh.’
Greed and lust shone in the eyes of Tokresh. He had heard the stories from his tribe’s elders about the old days, when the hordes of Chaos had descended upon the mighty kingdoms and cities of Shyish. Long had he dreamed of such wantonness and savagery. ‘I will tell my people,’ he said. ‘We will see this city.’
‘You will do more than see it,’ Lascilion promised. ‘You will tear it apart. After we have finished, nothing of flesh or stone will have been spared our attentions. Nulahmia exists only to sate our desires.’
The warlord watched Tokresh as he marched back to his tribe. Lascilion had rekindled the chieftain’s lust, but not his loyalty. When the battle began, he would give the Sorroweaters the honour of acting as the vanguard. Whatever defenders Nulahmia possessed, they could inflict the worst of their efforts against the marauders. They would expend resources and spare Lascilion the effort of dealing with Tokresh later.
Lascilion’s tongue slithered out and licked the air once more. The exquisite taste of depravity burned his senses like an exotic spice. When the walls came down, he would lead his Amethyst Guard through the rubble. Let the others indulge their petty appetites. For Lascilion, there could be no treasure more precious than the creature that could preside over such a legacy of atrocity.
Neferata would be his.
Chapter Two
From behind the battlements atop the Jackal Gate, Lord Harkdron glared down at the wormfields. A vast stretch of loamy ground spotted with ghoulish stands of morgueweed and the cadaverous blooms of cryptfronds, the fields were a carefully prepared killing ground for any foe so reckless as to threaten Nulahmia. Every foot of ground bore its hidden, eldritch mark, visible only to those versed in the dark art of necromancy. Each sigil denoted the distance from the walls, allowing the necromancers and vampires gathered on the ramparts to direct the arrows of the skeletal regiments under their command with fiendish precision.
There were more malefic magics bound into the morbid soil of the wormfields. Pockets of lethal corpse-gas erupted at a gesture from the necromancers, bursting beneath the marching feet of the Chaos horde and searing the life from their veins. Nests of marrow-maggots bubbled up from the earth to fasten their leech-like mouths about the toes and ankles of the invaders, digging fresh burrows in living flesh. The broken, mangled dead that over the centuries had been dumped into the wormfields like so much rubbish were reanimated with a spark of dark magic, clawing up to the surface. The maimed, battered things were too miserable to visit any true hurt upon the foe, but their noxious presence brought fear and confusion to the barbarians and beastmen, slowing their advance as they probed the ground ahead of them with spear and axe.
Crackling bolts of death magic hurtled down from the gnarled hands and skull-tipped staves of necromancers, withering clutches of brutish invaders at every turn. Gravestones launched from catapults smashed down upon the savage herds of horned gors. Spears of bone loosed from ballistas impaled hulking Chaos warriors, tearing through their heavy armour in sprays of gore. Showers of arrows rained down from the walls, lancing through the flesh of mutants and marauders. Havoc and carnage riddled the Chaos horde, yet still they came onward, trampling their wounded and dead underfoot as they continued their march.
Harkdron scowled at the enemy’s tenacity. He had expected them to relent under such punishment, to slink away in fright at the losses they were suffering. Perhaps he had grown too accustomed to the craven, servile mortals who dwelt in Nulahmia. Maybe it was his contempt for these crude, decadent creatures that made him underestimate them. Whatever the cause, Harkdron had to admit that the victory he had promised Neferata wouldn’t be as simple as he had thought it would be. The vampire could feel his queen’s eyes on him, watching him from her palace on the Throne Mount. He could feel her evaluating him, judging his every decision, noting his every mistake.
The Slaaneshi dead that littered the wormfields would be small consolation to his queen if Harkdron failed to keep them off the walls. Already there had been a few determined warbands that had managed to bring ladders to within a hundred yards of Nulahmia before the undead shot them down. A section of the Vulture Reach had been reduced to a steaming quagmire by the spells of a Chaos sorcerer. Other witches and warlocks cast withering lights and bolts of fiery magic up at the defenders, decimating scores of skeletal warriors beyond the potential of reanimation. One goat-headed shaman held his scalp-laden staff towards the Jackal Gate and evoked a soporific cloud that reduced a pair of deathmages to babbling wretches. Harkdron ordered his grave guard to dispatch the maddened spellcasters, then set his own magic against the bestial shaman. A bolt of dark energy speared down from his hand and burst the beastman’s heart. The shaman’s herd bleated in fright and fell back from the Jackal Gate.
The vampire lord looked away from the routed gors. He scowled at the sight of a large company of men and beasts advancing towards the Jackal Gate. At a glance Harkdron could tell these were more formidable foes than the marauders and brayherds they had faced thus far. This would be the main effort; he could feel it in his bones. Not only were these Chaos warriors better armed and equipped than the rest of the horde, but they also drew a hulking siege tower after them.
Harkdron stared at the tower behind the advancing horde, a mammoth cylinder of iron and wood, its top bound by a crown-like cap. He saw men behind the exposed framework of the tower, clinging to chains and ropes as the siege engine rolled forwards. He snarled a command to the ballistas mounted atop the Jackal Gate, directing them to engage the tower. As they hurled their missiles at the siege engine, a purplish light shimmered around the structure, shattering the bolts before they could strike it. Harkdron cursed at the stifled attack. He snapped a command to one of the necromancers who had survived the shaman’s spell, but even bolts of dark magic couldn’t pierce the arcane wards that shielded the structure. The enemy had their own fell magic to draw upon, and it seemed the most potent of their sorcery had been directed to keeping the tower from harm.
The vampire observed the tower’s advance with suspicion. Why was there only one tower? Were the invaders so arrogant that they thought they could seize the city from a single foothold? To defend the walls Harkdron had roused battalions of grave guard from their deathless sleep
, and summoned dread wight kings from the oldest tombs to command them. Wherever the enemy brought their tower, they would find a remorseless foe waiting to receive them.
If such was truly their plan. Harkdron wondered if the tower was simply a ruse, a trick to capture his attention. All the elaborate precautions to protect it were perhaps nothing more than flavouring to make the deception more convincing. Down there, among the teeming mass of brayherds and warbands, the invaders might be hiding grapnels and ladders, or even more esoteric means of scaling the walls. The malignant spirits entombed beneath the gatehouses might claim some of the attackers, the skeleton warriors atop the walls still more, but if the assault was spread broadly enough, the foe might yet succeed in their purpose.
Harkdron gripped the edge of the crenulations before him, his fingers digging into the limestone as he gnashed his fangs in frustration. He wouldn’t abide the shame of failing his queen. Neferata was just cruel enough to let him linger in disgrace rather than destroying him outright. She had charged him with keeping the enemy outside the walls. If even a single barbarian made it into Nulahmia, he would know the queen’s wrath.
The tower. Deception or arrogance? Harkdron had to know. Pulling off his left gauntlet, he raised his bared hand to his mouth and brought his fangs stabbing into his pallid flesh. The stagnant blood of his undead veins bubbled up from the wound. Stretching out his hand, holding his bloodied palm towards the crawling tower, the vampire hissed an incantation. He was calling upon the vicious hunters that nested deep within the Black Grotto, calling to them in their hungry slumbers. He felt the creatures stirring, answering his call. Soon they would take wing and come to claim the prey he had chosen for them.